American Classical Orchestra & Chorus
Shelén Hughes Camacho | soprano
Helen Karloski | mezzo-soprano
Stephen Soph | tenor
Edmond Milly | bass-baritone
Thomas Crawford | conductor

Franz Josef Haydn wrote his famous choral work in 1798 with the title Missa in Angustiis, or “Mass for Troubled Times,” as Napoleon’s forces were threatening much of Europe, including the composer’s native Austria. In honor of British Admiral Horatio Nelson’s defeat of Napoleon that year in the Battle of the Nile, the mass eventually took on its more familiar nickname “Lord Nelson”. The performance will feature the young Bolivian soprano Shelén Hughes Camacho, a winner of the 2025 George and Nora London Foundation Competition, in her ACO debut. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21, concludes the first of three Celebrate Beethoven! concerts during 2026-27, continuing ACO’s performance cycle of all nine symphonies begun last season in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death in 1827.